Communications giant BT Tuesday made public its intentions to acquire Ribbit Corporation, a Silicon Valley-based "Telco 2.0" platform company, for 105 million dollars.
Founded in 2006 and based in Mountain View, California, Ribbit provides an open platform, which enables developers to create new and innovative voice applications and services by combining telephony and Internet technologies in new ways.
According to BT, the acquisition of the Ribbit platform will complement its existing capability in the software platform space with its Software Development Kit (SDK) initiative.
"The Ribbit platform makes it simpler, cheaper and faster to build communications functionality into applications, enabling developers to introduce new revenue-generating voice services in hours, rather than weeks,” said Michael Boustridge, President, BT Americas.
“By combining the Ribbit platform with BT's existing web services, we have the potential to deliver some of the world's finest applications for communications innovation benefiting consumers and businesses alike."
Ribbit's platform allows developers to add voice and automation features to virtually any web-based application or community. For example, using Ribbit, developers have integrated voice into salesforce.com and built voice applications that run directly from Facebook or iGoogle.
BT's SDKs enable developers to integrate new applications with BT's services using a single line of code. Ribbit, which will maintain its management team and identity, will extend its global footprint by becoming part of BT.
"Silicon Valley is emerging as a hotbed of telecommunications innovation. With Ribbit, not only do we extend our presence in the Valley, but we also gain a groundbreaking platform, a growing community of developers and a world-class team that share a common vision. Buying Ribbit lets us accelerate that vision," said P Rangaswami, managing director of service design, BT. |
